


jack and jill went up the hill (jill came tumbling after)

by Kasuchi



Category: House M.D.
Genre: Challenge Response, F/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-31
Updated: 2006-10-31
Packaged: 2017-12-27 18:29:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/982196
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kasuchi/pseuds/Kasuchi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Emerson was dead. (Long live Emerson.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	jack and jill went up the hill (jill came tumbling after)

**Author's Note:**

> For the **backsexy** challenge. Prompt #8: "Thou art to me a delicious torment." --Ralph Waldo Emerson

She's always hated Emerson.

When she was in highschool and read "The American Scholar," she thought he was full of crap. Transparent eyeballs can't hold pens, she decided. But it was more than that; it was how Emerson was all talk and no action. _Nature_ and _Self-Reliance_ spoke gibberish for all she cared; Emerson was dead. (Long live Emerson.)

So when Wilson looked over at her, dark eyes under a heavy brow, she curses Emerson and mutters, "The conscious stone to beauty grew," even as he kisses her.

&&&

She was never going to be _that girl_.

She hates _that girl_ , the tease and the torture and the flirt. The one every man seems to want and the one that they all hate to have. She's met _that guy_ and hated him for it in the end and couldn't face the best friend _that guy_ was also with.

She wasn't _supposed_ to be her. She was Allison, staunch and loyal and not a cheater, not ever, no. She gave up her faith, but retained her dignity.

She closes her eyes and days and nights blur. The scratch of stubble melts into the insistent press of shorter hands blurs two men into one and all she can do is breathe and breathe and breathe.

&&&

It happens like this:

Stacey is here, around the hospital, haunting her and it's not even All Hallow's Eve yet. She feels like a ghost in her own home, and the dark circles under her eyes from working late and hard aren't helping her mood any. She's restless and pacing and wound and wound and wound so tightly that she can't do anything but release.

She's sitting in the locker room, the one with the showers and the blue tile and all the moments when Wilson walks in, looking as tired as she feels.

"Oh!" And his eyes widen almost comically so that she can't help but smile a little; Wilson can always make her smile. "Sorry, I just thought I'd take a shower to wake up. But I can come back later, if you want?"

There's a question in his voice and a sparkle in his eyes and she's lonely anyway and what the hell, she needs to start taking risks as it is. "No, it's okay. I was thinking about taking a shower, too." She swallows and catches his eye. "You wanna join me?" She's looking up at him through her lashes and it makes him all blurry and textured.

The scrubs fall away like soft cloth and they're kissing desperately under the spray of hot water and slick with soap so that their hands just slide over skin. His tongue in her mouth and the heel of his hand pressing against her clit and his fingers against--she moans ( _like a whore_ ) into his mouth and her back bows so far that it feels like every inch of their fronts are searing together. She half expects him to leave burns all over her skin, but even as she comes the water washes away all trace.

He sinks into her, hands at her waist and mouth still on hers. Her back against the wet tile, colder still for the moisture, and her hands around his neck and the hard length of him making her muscles shift and bunch. She grins wickedly and contracts deliberately, and delights in the feel of his teeth grazing her tongue and her lips, in the sound he makes low in his throat, and the quiet smoulder in his eyes.

&&&

It also starts like this:

He leads her out of the chapel, one hand on her elbow, the other wrapped tightly around the cane. She doesn't say anything, just wipes away tears with the hem of her scrubs - the pink ones with the blue trim that she's always really liked even if she'll never admit it aloud. She doesn't even think about how she's not wearing her usual cami or t-shirt under them, how it's just the flat expanse of her stomach in the strange colors of the passing streetlights. In the shifting shadows, she can read House less than she normally can, and it unnerves her.

He pulls up to her place and kills the engine. She doesn't move.

"We're here," he offers quietly, and it's far gentler than she's used to. She doesn't know what to do with a supportive House. It's like taking the square root of a negative number; she keeps getting errors and imaginary numbers and lots and lots of letters i.

"Come up," she replies, and there's not a question there.

He doesn't say anything, but she can feel his eyes on her for a long, hard moment. Then he sighs and there's the click of his seatbelt coming undone. The door pops open. Tentatively, she reaches out a hand and pulls the latch herself, stepping out into the cool night air with a faint shiver.

Her keys ring loudly in the hallway, but they're the only ones. He is just a solid wall behind her, immobile and unnerving and simply there and she isn't sure what to make of any of this. The tumbler falls and the deadbolt slides back and the painted pine swings back of its own accord and they walk in. He even has the courtesy to close the door behind them.

She throws the keys onto the coffee table and stares into the distance for an eternity. She feels him breathe behind her, hears him watching her like so many patients and then something breaks.

She kisses him fiercely, because she needs to be grounded in the here and now; she's losing herself and the kiss tastes like mouthwash and a little like wine or maybe that was the other him and it doesn't really matter at the moment. She pushes the jacket off his shoulders and it lands with a distant thump against the hardwood of her floors. She grabs him by the lapels of his blazer and pulls him forward (backward). She's using him, she knows he knows she knows, and she doesn't really care.

Three steps backward, stumbling and unsteady and they manage to reach her bedroom. His cane clatters to the floor and the noise echoes in the tomb of her apartment; it's a tomb it's not it is but it isn't except for the photos on the bottom shelf and the copy of _Pride & Prejudice_ near the top and oh there goes her sanity because he's decided that she's not the only one who needs to reaffirm her life. He pulls out the hair clip-tie-thing she stuck in there and runs long fingers against her scalp, along the dark, wide curls.

They tumble and stumble into her bed and there he's far gentler than she ever expected, but his hands still burn burn burn and his eyes still drill drill drill and when the sun rises he is gone and she is alone in a bed that's slowly cooling. She thinks about long fingers curling against her skin, rough stubble against her breasts and her stomach, about scars and torments and blue blue blue, stark even when everything else is gray.

&&&

And then there's Thoreau.

She read _Walden_ and got it, understood where and what and why and how except she couldn't articulate it. It was like knowing the meaning of life and being unable to tell anyone. Because when Emerson just talked and wrote about it, Thoreau lived it. Thoreau _was_ it. Walden Pond is a place because of him. It takes on significance just because of the presence of one man.

They blur, ridiculous blending of colours (white and blue and brown and gray and lots and lots of red) and sounds (sighs and moans and growls and whispers of infinite nothings) until it's sensation she can't seem to separate. There, against the wall in the office, hands burning and teeth marking. There, in the exam room, table propped flat at two-thirty and after a long shift. Once in the lab, twice in the chair and she can't separate fact and fiction and dreams and reality.

&&&

They confront her together and she's finally _that girl_. And finally they separate themselves in her mind.

One is still and defensive, hands in pockets, white lab coat an armor to hide behind. The other leans against the redwood of his cane, posture accusatory but his eyes flash vulnerable. Long fingers and a dark brow and she finally understands.

"The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation," she murmurs and kisses both of them in turn.


End file.
